Posts Categorized: Cocktails

Time to reflect on the year that has passed, a good one with much productivity here in the Ruhlman household! As our hobbled economy slouches toward recovery (and a fractious House of Reps hides behind a corner, stick in hand, waiting to trip it up), we remain staunchly optimistic! And I would like to publicly thank my amazing wife, without whom none of this could happen. Thank you, Donna! Herewith, a bit of personal horn tooting, highlights of this year’s work, followed by the Top Ten most popular posts of 2012. Best wishes to all for a healthy and fruitful New Year filled with great food and great cooking! Ruhlman’s Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, a Cook’s Manifesto won both the James Beard Foundation Award and the IACP award for general cooking. Brian Polcyn and I published Salumi: The Craft of Read On »

Out of nowhere My Girl Friday shouted, “You should do a post on goose!” with her customary joie de vivre. So when I was ordering a couple of chickens from Cara at Tea Hill Farms, I asked if she had a goose. No, but her neighbor did. A few days later my dear pal Lester shouted, “We should cook goose!” I said, “I just bought one!” My equally dear pal (all of us since high school) Dave Loomis said, “I want in!” So for what is now about year 15 of an annual dinner, I determined to cook my own goose. I had cooked goose, exactly once, nearly two decades ago (I remember being astonished at the quantity of fat it released, staggering). I’d watched a goose cooked late in the late fall of 2001 (when Read On »

I’m so pleased with results of the cooked eggnog I wrote about long ago, I wanted to repost an official tested recipe. I’m a fan of raw-egg eggnog, as well as aged-for-two-years raw eggnog. I don’t believe anyone should be afraid of eating raw eggs (especially if you buy organic or well-raised eggs). Raw yolk on raw ground beef is a delight, a kind of ready-made sauce. I love a homemade mayo, a runny poached egg. Indeed, raw or warm egg is one of the great pleasures of cooking and eating. But there are those who may be concerned or have reason not to take any chances. There are also those who may simply love the richness of the cooked egg and the clean flavor the vanilla bean gives it (I also love the creaminess of Read On »

Holiday punch was out of fashion even in Charles Dickens’ day, but he loved the old recipes for it. And as described in this NPR story with David Wondrich on his book Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl, punch was created by 17th-century British-empire-building sailors whose beer spoiled in tropical heat. They would have used rum and brandy and lots of it for punch with serious punch. Today for me it has a whiff of the 1950s, and does bring to mind sherbet for some reason, but as Wondrich points out in the NPR piece, punch is not a cocktail or pedestrian glass of generic Chardonnay—that is, an individual and isolating libation strategy. It is, rather, a communal and group drink, a social drink, a shared drink. I talk a lot about the Read On »

A few weeks ago when Donna was gadding about in NYC, I asked my dear pal Lester if he’d have a drink with me at the best bar in the world, aka Velvet Tango Room. I wanted to have a look at its menu and to have a cocktail I created, or rather, riffed on a classic, The Martinez. Mine is called The Berkshire Martinez and I am honored to be on the menu. The bar’s owner is Paulius Nasvytis. In a tale too odd and complicated to go into here, he and Claudia Young, longtime Nashville resident, are an item. Before Lester and I could head off for some greezy Chinese chuck, Paulius and Claudia arrived. They had created a new cocktail and were eager for us to try it. It is a fabulous Read On »